On August 19, members of the People’s Guarani Assembly of Takova Mora blocked a main highway in the Chaco region of Bolivia demanding their right to free, prior and informed consent regarding oil extraction on their communal lands. The Government responded by sending in 300 police who broke up the demonstration by force.
Police repression of the blockade in Takovo Mora. (Photo OIEDC)
Using tear gas and batons, police then raided the nearby community of Yateirenda–where many of the demonstrators had fled–damaging property and violently arresting 27 people, including 2 youth aged 14 and 17.
According to eye witnesses,
The behaviour of the police was more like that of mercenaries who raided the community without any arrest warrant, attacked houses and used violence to detain leaders.
All 27 detainees were released the following day; however, 17 of them were given extrajudicial sanctions (medidas sustantivas) to prevent them from participating in road blocks or being involved in any events related to the Takova Mora conflict.
This confrontation takes place amidst rising tensions between the Government of Evo Morales and Indigenous Peoples, environmental advocacy groups and civil society organizations critical of his extractivist policies.
Protests against the Barro Blanco hydro dam in western Panama turned violent last Saturday, July 25, when riot police, claiming to act in self-defense, unleashed pepper spray and batons on some 50 Ngäbe activists, women and children among them. At least three protesters were badly injured in the clash.
The crackdown occurred during a visit to the area by the Panamanian Vice President Isabel Saint Malo, who, under the pretext of dialogue, convened three Ngäbe leaders behind closed doors at the Centro Misionero (Mission Centre) in the town of Tolé. Despite a reasonable request to be included in the meeting, leaders from local community groups were excluded. Activists responded to Saint Malo’s move by blockading the Carretera Interamericana, the country’s principle highway.
Protesters, including women and children, recover after clashes with the police. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
According to the Ngäbe, at around 10:15 am, in scenes reminiscent of the Martinelli years, the police reacted violently to disperse the 50-strong protesters, destroying their equipment, trashing their camps, and burning their banners.
The police deny improper use of force.
Edilma Pinto, 17, suffered a fractured foot during the police crackdown. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
Many fled the scene before 20 people were arrested (including several minors) and dispatched to the city of Santiago for processing.
While in the private meeting with Saint Malo, the Cacique of Muná, Chito Gallardo, and the Mayor of Muná, Rolando Carpintero, learned of the arrests and quickly intervened to have them returned. The injured were soon taken to the Casa Misionero for treatment and for the Vice President to bear witness.
According to one person at the scene, the vice president appeared coolly uninterested.
Some 20 Ngäbe protesters were detained by the police. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
For several weeks, hundreds of police units have been stationed in and around Tolé, including numerous SENAFRONT troops, an elite militarized squad funded in part by the United States. SENAFRONT is normally charged with defending the jungle frontier with Colombia, making their presence of considerable significance.
Under the US Leahy Law on Human Rights, the US Department of State is prohibited from providing military assistance to foreign units who violate human rights with impunity.
Partly funded by the US State Department, elite SENAFRONT troops have been dispatched to the area. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
The clashes on the Interamericana foreshadow greater unrest as Barro Blanco’s owner, Generadora del Istmo (GENISA) – a corporation owned by the controversial Kafie family, now mired in a high-level corruption scandal in Honduras – scrambles to complete the final 5-10% of the hydro dam’s construction.
The company has never sought the free, informed, and prior consent of the indigenous communities living on the banks of the Tabasará river, while the project’s funders, the Dutch and German investment banks FMO and DFE, admit to failing their own due diligence tests. Unfortunately, all funds have now been dispensed to GENISA and the banks themselves made a point of threatening the government when it suspended the project earlier this year.
The negative impacts of Barro Blanco have been identified by scores of technical teams, independent experts, international observers, and the United Nations. Those same impacts are nowhere to be found in GENISA’s Environmental Impact Assessment. Among them, the dam will displace several indigenous and campesino communities, including the community of Kiad, where a unique school and cultural centre is developing the written script of the Ngäbere language.
The ancient Ngabere language is taught at this school house in Kiad. (Photo: Richard Arghiris)
Additional impacts include the loss of farm plots and fish stocks — vital sources of sustenance for indigenous and campesino communities in the region – as well as the loss of several ancient petroglyphs, part of Panama’s national patrimony and a special significance to the Mama Tata religion, a Ngäbe revivalist movement that syncretises indigenous animism and Catholicism.
The Ngabere language is a great source of cultural pride. (Photo: Richard Arghiris)
Among the most devout followers of Mama Tata are the M22 resistance movement, who successfully blockaded the entrance to the dam for 38 consecutive days – until just ten days ago. International news footage of the groups praying and dancing on the highway may have influenced the government’s decision to enforce a ‘soft’ take-over of the site entrance. In contrast to the force deployed outside Tolé, Ngäbe women lying in the path of machinery were carefully removed.
Construction of the dam has now resumed and M22 are continuing to pray day and night by the highway. They complain of psychological intimidation with the police shining high intensity lamps on their camp during the night and aggressively entering the temple they have built near the river banks.
Days before their eviction from the site entrance, M22 gather for prayers under police spotlights. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
For his part, Panamanian President Varela, who continues to talk condescendingly about giving the Ngäbe ‘the keys to the dam’ upon its completion, appears to have acquiesced to pressures from his own business community, tacitly enabling foreign corporations who respect neither the environment nor international law nor indigenous or human rights.
The Supreme Court has cheered him on by annulling a moratorium on hydro projects passed by the environment agency, ANAM, who were concerned with the stress being placed on Panama’s delicate but biologically rich watersheds. With the crackdown last week, the Panamanian government appears officially back to business as usual.
From Intercontinental Cry: https://intercontinentalcry.org/barro-blanco-protesters-injured-and-arrested-28467/#imageclose-28472
On March 15th the International Day Against Police Brutality was observed for the first time in Memphis, Tennessee by the Black Autonomy Federation. People came to the event from as far away as Iowa, Ohio, and Denver. People gathered first outside city hall and spoke. Cardboard coffins were lined up facing out from city hall representing 13 of the 14 people killed by the Memphis Police Department in the last thirteen months.
Women have also been sexually assaulted by the Memphis police officers. JoNina Ervin, acting chair of the Black Autonomy Federation stated that they have been told by a number of women that there are police in Memphis that arrest women and force them to have sex with them, “That’s the kind of police we have here. This is a corrupt police department and a police department out of control.”
Lorenzo Ervin of the BAF stated that “We have out right atrocities that no one of these people can defend but the authorities here, the city authorities as well as the state prosecutors are engaged in a conspiracy to cover up and not to prosecute these crimes by the police, the authorities and others working in concert with them. This is why it is important for us to bring attention to the city of Memphis, Tennessee.”
People later chanted and marched to the Memphis police department and the Shelby County Jail. Activists and family members of those murdered spoke out. In attendance was the family of Delois Epps and Makayla Ross who were killed on August 26th leaving from a family get-together by a police officer Alex Beard. Thirty- three year old family member Shaquitta Epps asks “Why wasn’t he charged?” When asked if she was surprised by the response of the city and police department towards her family members death she responded “No it happens all the time but I never thought it would happen to my family. You see it in the paper and on the TV but you never really know until it happens to your family.”
Martin Ezsutton brother of twenty-two year old Rekia Boyd who was killed in Chicago by police officer Dante Servin stated that “The police were highly disrespectful.” Servin is not being charged with the murder and is being paid working a desk job that pays 90,000 dollars. “He just got a promotion for murdering my sister!…Who is going to take responsibility? They failed to prosecute him for his actions.”
Unfortunately the deaths of black people by the police in Memphis and across the country are not a rare occurrence with a rate of one black person every 36 hours being killed by the police in the United States (“Report on the Extrajudicial Killings of 120 black people” Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, July 2012)
The next day a conference was held to discuss how to organize against police brutality and killings with activists from various communities. The BAF discussed the ongoing police killings and brutality in the context of the capitalist state. Lorenzo states that “ We understand we are not just fighting the police we are fighting fascism.” The BAF is calling for an international boycott against the town of Memphis until it “stops persecuting and killing poor working class black people and consorting with the KKK.”
On March 30th the Black Autonomy Federation are organizing a counter protest against the KKK. The Klan are prompted to come because of a name change of Nathan Bedford Forest Park to Health Science Park. Forest was the first grand wizard of the Klan. According to JoNina Ervin the city has been uncooperative with their efforts to organize an anti Klan rally. “There is a media campaign telling people to stay home, don’t come out, ignore the Klan, and the line they are using is that any person that comes out is crazy. They want to criminalize the people who are protesting the Klan when the Klan are the real criminals.”
According to members of the BAF the NAACP has been collaborating with the state in this. “The head of the NAACP in Memphis said on TV, people should stay home and wash their cars and shook hands with the Sons of the Confederacy. The constitution gives people first amendment rights they will have police to protect them but people opposed to the terrorism of the KKK are just supposed to shut up that day. They want us to be off in a corner some place. The city has been in collaboration with these neo confederates for so long.” For JoNina and others in the BAF, it is crucial for people in Memphis and from all over the country to come and take a stand against the Klan, “If you don’t let the Klan know that you’re here and opposed to their white supremacy, that gives them free range to keep on coming back here and that is why they keep coming back.”
If you would like to get in contact with the Black Autonomy Federation or offer support, please contact them at Organize.the.hood@gmail.com.
As a socially conscious person situated within the heart of global industrial civilization, I often experience, directly and indirectly, injustices on a daily basis.
A week ago, the NYPD (via two plainclothes officers) murdered a 16-year-old boy, Kimani Gray, firing 11 shots – hitting him 7 times in total; 3 in the back, 4 in the front. Monday night a large crowd began a vigil that would kick-off a week full of protest in the neighborhood – the night culminated in trash being thrown into the streets to slow down the riot police, glass bottles being thrown at officers from rooftop buildings, and the NYPD entering numerous apartments without warrants. Following that night (and for every day since) the East Flatbush neighborhood has been under military-style occupation with no less than three riot police on every single corner for more than 30 blocks. By Wednesday, the NYPD had declared the neighborhood a “Frozen Zone,” essentially affirming martial law by limiting press access and arresting anyone who did not precisely follow police instructions. One week later, tensions are still as high as ever, and justice has yet to be served.
This is just one example of many injustices that occur in this city every single day. The NYPD “Stop and Frisk” policy continues to racially profile men and women of color, funneling the youth of Harlem, the Bronx, and Brooklyn through the education-prison pipeline at alarming rates. “Crime” is on a steady rise, not as unsurprising as one may think due to the directly proportional rise in poverty among every borough and neighborhood in the city. Every day, more people lose their jobs, their access to food stamps and medical benefits, and every day more people lose hope for the future. In the last year alone, the city has seen multiple seemingly-random outbursts of violence– one man went borough to borough opening fire and stabbing pedestrians on the street at will; another opened fire near the Empire State Building after losing his job (while the NYPD themselves, in their attempt to “bring him down,” shot up to eight passerbys in their own cross-fire); and even a few people were, for unknown reasons, pushed in front of oncoming subway trains by complete strangers.
Subconsciously (and for some of us, consciously) we all know things are bad. Really bad. We don’t really need the mainstream media’s live Twitter feed to remind us of the state of decay in which our society functions. But often we ignore it – we do our best to keep our ear buds blasting noise and our eyes focused on the concrete to avoid any confrontation with reality. We say to ourselves, “I am a moral person, and I am responsible – I would never do such things and it’s really just a matter of educating and elevating others to my consciousness. If I lead by example, others will follow.” While one could (very easily) argue that this culture makes most of us, in fact, insane (or increasingly drives us to points of insanity), it still does take extraordinary leaps and bounds to get to a point in which we lose our morality and social responsibility entirely. I certainly know way too many socialists and activists who consider themselves to be The Most Moral and Just Citizens of the World™.
But, if that is generally true– if most leftists and activists do represent a moral high ground in our society, and our collective will for more social responsibility alone could alleviate the continually degrading human condition– why hasn’t it happened yet? Why haven’t those in power been persuaded to our side? Is this ultimately possible? Is it really just a matter of switching out the psychopaths that run our culture for more moral and responsible people? Will this result in the utopia of utopia’s in which all human needs are addressed and efficiently met thus eliminating all suffering? If not– if it really isn’t this simple – why do we waste so much time discussing it, and why haven’t our analyses and strategies changed?
Moral suasion as an argument and tool for social change is a bankrupt strategy. It not only falls short in the context of our current reality, it eventually becomes a counterrevolutionary force. Effective moral suasion is dependent upon the size of the oppressor(s). It generally does not work when applied to mass groups of people, and is generally only successful on a case-by-case basis with individuals and small groups. These individuals also have to be human beings, for the sole reason that to be persuaded they must have a conscience and/or an already existing morality (although it is pretty unlikely that an oppressor could ever have a conscience).
The reason, then, that moral argument is a bankrupt strategy for social change is because we are not dealing with individuals, small groups, or even solely human beings. What we currently face are arrangements of power through abstract systems and institutions of power (multinational corporations, nation-states, civilization, patriarchy, etc.) that involve large numbers of people that can be, and easily are, replaced. Our problems are systemic and no matter whom we “elect,” or choose to act on our behalf or for the greater good of humanity, the destructive nature of the system itself will continue unabated– acknowledging this is crucial to a radical analysis and a functional understanding of root causes of problems.
Many on the left, while acknowledging the various systemic problems in our society, do genuinely believe that if we switched to a more responsible, more moral society not based on greed or capitalism, that we will finally have the motive and incentive to create a sustainable and just future. The main oppositional force that prevents this change, so goes the argument, is capitalism – a highly inefficient economic system that funnels money, resources and power from the poor to the rich. It is therefore understood that it is capitalism’s social relations that create its inefficiency, and the hierarchy of its power prevents equitable distribution of its goods and services.
“We currently produce enough food to feed the entire world and yet millions of people die of starvation every year. If we change the social relations, and develop our personal capacities for mutual aid, we can feed every single human on this planet – no one would ever die of starvation.” Or so we are persuaded to believe. Sure, we can point to statistics of how much food is thrown out and wasted (in the United States alone, even) and logically come to a conclusion that this is a problem of distribution and efficiency.
Unfortunately, this type of logic fails to address the inherent “nature” of agriculture, industrialism, and civilization itself, which are all subject to (collectively and separately) diminishing returns and collapse. Ironically, these socialists, in their failure to question the given existence of these other systems, end up re-enforcing and defending the very processes they purport to oppose – a rather classic case of “revolutionaries” acting as their own counterrevolutionary force.
If this is the case, then here are some rather obvious questions we should ask ourselves: can industrial civilization and capitalism exist exclusively? Can we have a global industrial infrastructure functioning under socialism (even solely in a transitional phase), and still have a sustainable and moral society? Can we have our cake, and can we eat it, too? The answer: No. This isn’t only a fantasy – it is a seriously dangerous one.
For perhaps one could argue that certainly, under socialism, society would be more moral and ethical than how it currently exists under capitalism. But having a more moral society does not ultimately result in sustainability. These are two distinct (although highly interconnected) ideals. If our wish is to create both a fundamentally sustainable society and a fundamentally just and moral society, then we can’t forgive one for the sake of the other, and we have to start asking more radical questions about what this all might mean.
If there is one thing we understand about civilizations other than their rise and dominance in the last 10,000 years, it is that they are all fundamentally marked by collapse and degradation. Some last for thousands of years, some for centuries, but some (regrettably for us) barely make it past one or two centuries. The unifying processes here are the rise of cities, dense concentrations of population, the overshooting of carrying capacity, the limits to growth and the point of diminishing returns, and collapse (social, political, economic, and ecological).
Industrial civilization (i.e. urbanization, industrialism, industrial capitalism, etc.) is a specific arrangement of civilization characterized by massive urban centers and their dependency on machines and fossil fuel use. In its extremely short existence, just under two hundred years, we have seen an alarming rate of growth resulting in the hyper-interconnected global civilization of seven billion people in which we live today. The Population Reference Bureau describes this urbanization as such:
In 1800, only 3 percent of the world’s population [estimated in total at 1 billion people] lived in urban areas. By 1900, almost 14 percent were urbanites, although only 12 cities had 1 million or more inhabitants. In 1950, 30 percent of the world’s population resided in urban centers. The number of cities with over 1 million people had grown to 83.
“The world has experienced unprecedented urban growth in recent decades. In 2008, for the first time, the world’s population was evenly split between urban and rural areas. There were more than 400 cities over 1 million and 19 over 10 million. More developed nations were about 74 percent urban, while 44 percent of residents of less developed countries lived in urban areas. [1]
Megacities, as defined as urban centers with populations greater than 10 million people, have drastically increased – “just three cities had populations of 10 million or more in 1975, one of them in a less developed country. Megacities numbered 16 in 2000. By 2025, 27 megacities will exist, 21 in less developed countries.” This process of massive urbanization –unprecedented in size and scope – was made possible because of fossil fuel use, most specifically the “cheap” and “efficient” extraction of oil.
Because civilizations, in their inherent drive to greater and greater complexity, will inevitably reach a point of diminishing returns (i.e. when the amount that is returned per investment begins to decrease), they are subject to and defined by collapse. If the dramatic rise in human population was made possible because of fossil fuels (finite resources), it becomes crucial to question and understand when our civilization will reach the point of diminishing returns (peak energy).
The implications of reaching peak energy is a rapid decline in human population, a decline that will return world population to at least (if not less) the levels seen before the beginning of industrialism (a loss marked by billions). This process will occur whether or not peak energy is reached under capitalism or socialism, or a moral or immoral society. This is predominantly a structural problem – a problem in the way in which humans live on their landbase (a kind of social relation we often forget even exists).
As we can already see, based on our current dependency on energy intensive fossil fuel extraction (ex. Alberta tar sands oil) – at the same time of escalating erosion of soils, pollution of freshwaters, a rapid loss of biodiversity, and accelerating rates of biosphere pollution via emission of greenhouse gases – it should be a given that not only are we already past the point of diminishing returns but that the rate of collapse itself is accelerating.
Today, our current crisis is global and total in scope – our entire way of life and every living being (human and nonhuman) is hanging by a thread. Each day that passes, 200 more species go extinct, furthering a rapid loss of biodiversity. Each day, that thread gets thinner and the stress becomes even more unfathomable.
Current CO2 emissions are at 395 ppm – a level not reached in more than 15 million years. The time lag between levels of CO2 and temperature rise is roughly 30 years. Based on current levels of CO2 today alone, we are already locked into a global temperature increase of 3-6C over the next 30 years. An increase of 1.5C is all that is required to reach critical tipping points in which runaway global warming will occur, culminating in an abrupt extinction of nearly all biological life.
Each day, every single day industrial civilization marches on, the responsibility of action gets greater – but are we doing anything more than making sure we remain morally pure? Are we adequately escalating our actions to the severity of the problem?
There is nothing redeemable about this culture. Structurally, it is morally reprehensible – it requires massive amounts of violence (via conquest, genocide, slavery, repression, etc.) in order to “effectively” function and exist. There is nothing moral in having to steal resources from another group or landbase because your way of life is based on expansion rates that require more and more resources (from more and more places).
As has been said many times by others, the goal of an activist is not to try to navigate this culture and its systems of oppression with as much integrity as possible – the goal of an activist is to dismantle those systems. If we have a responsibility, as activists, to dismantle all systems of oppression and have a healthy, thriving planet for humans and nonhumans alike, we have to start talking more seriously (and radically) about where our problems come from and how to challenge them. This requires across the board questioning of everything we consider to be our “reality,” even when those questions get increasingly tough and hard to confront.
Where we go from here (and what we ultimately leave for future generations) is entirely up to us. If we are looking to be successful, the first step is (for once and for all) to throw away all of our bankrupt strategies and tactics. Our morality alone will not guarantee future generations will have air to breathe or water to drink. Throwing out one economic system for another, but not also taking with it its entire industrial infrastructure, will not stop the ecological degradation in any meaningful capacity.
Our time frame for effective action is rapidly shrinking and the longer we wait, the more destructive, chaotic, and total the collapse will be. If we have any expectation at all in not just surviving, but also repairing and restoring a thriving planet, we have to adapt a strategy that matches the severity of the problem. This culture must be stopped. We must dismantle industrial infrastructure, unlearn all destructive ideologies, and begin rebuilding genuinely sustainable communities as soon as possible, and by any means necessary.
[1] Human Population: Urbanization – Population Reference Bureau
After two weeks of peaceful protesting against oil exploitation in Arauca, on February 12 that department’s social organizations began a strike announced a few days earlier as a response to the repeated broken promises by the national government and transnational companies.
The last attempt at dialogue took place on Monday, February 11, between the Commission’s spokespeople (composed of a delegation of indigenous people, peasants, youth, women, workers and community members) and representatives of the Minister of the Interior, as well as oil companies that operate in the region, with the goal of establishing the conditions that would allow the fulfillment of those promises that they’ve been making since May 2012.
The repeated lack of follow-through by the government and businesses, and the delay in the negotiation process caused the fracture in the space for dialogue, followed by the use of state force: approximately 1,200 members of the Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron (the ESMAD in Spanish) arrived to violently evict the communities at the protest sites.
The first act occurred on the walkway San Isidro, over the de Tame road toward the Arauca capital, at the gate to the petroleum complex Caricare, which is used by the transnational company OXY, where ESMAD, the Police, and the Army assaulted the mobilized communities by setting fires to the surrounding pastures, discharging their weapons, destroying common buildings (a school), taking away the food supplies to the protestors, and beating and retaining four people.
As a result of the violence, a pregnant indigenous woman who was passing through lost her baby because of the effects of the tear gas, and had to receive emergency attention at a medical center.
The police had kept local and national reporters from contacting CM&, RCN, and other local media that moved to Caricare; the national army set up a checkpoint in the sector of Lipa that prohibited the passage of reporters “for security reasons.” It should be noted that in the Quimbo (Huila) events the police also restricted the presence of the media and acted out a series of violations of basic human rights and International Humanitarian Rights (DIH).
In the face of the this situation, the Human Rights Foundation Joel Sierra posted an Urgent Action which stated its concern for the detention of people, aggression and brutal violence exercised against the peasants and indigenous peoples, the infractions of the International Humanitarian Rights committed by the police to violate and destroy civil installations, and the removal of supplies for feeding those protesting. The Foundation also insisted that the Colombian State respect human rights and the International Humanitarian Rights norms.
In similar form, Urgent Action denounced a series of violations to the protestors’ rights by the police, whose members have dedicated themselves to constantly photograph those that participate in the protests, have retained, interrogated, and reported some of them, and have appeared in civilian clothing and armed in the middle of the night at the edges of the protest sites, among other cases.
In the rest of the protest sites, like the gate to the petroleum complex of Caño Limón in the municipality of Arauca, the town of Caricare in Arauquita, the bicentennial pipeline in Tamacay and el Tigre (Tame) and in Villamaga (Saravena) and the fire substation of Banadías (Saravena), the authorities have sent contingents from the army, the national police, and the ESMAD, because they fear the same will happen in those places that happened in Caricare.
It’s important to note that at this time people and vehicles cannot travel by land to get outside of the department of Arauca by the only two major roads (Casanare and Norte de Santander), and all commerce and activity is completely paralyzed in that region of the country.
